Haunted Hammond organ, rebajada versions, fictional salsa bands, and more from one of Colombia‘s most inventive and singular contemporary groups.

In John Akomfrah’s 1996 Afrofuturist documentary The Last Angel of History, a fictional digital-nomadic figure (played by researcher Edward George) travels across time and space where he makes archaeological digs for fragments of history and technology that “hold the key to his future.” Largely centered around music and literature, the film traces Afrofuturism through the works of cosmic jazz legend Sun Ra, Parliament Funkadelic’s George Clinton, Detroit techno pioneers Juan Atkins, Derrick May, and Carl Craig, along with science-fiction writers Samuel R. Delany and Octavia E. Butler.

In the late ’90s in Latin America, a Colombian composer and multi-instrumentalist named Eblis Álvarez began a similar archaeological musical practice with the formation of Meridian Brothers, a “neo-tropicalista group” experimenting with influences from traditional Colombian music such as vallenato, cumbia, bullerengue, palenquero, gaita, and Latin-American folk. Like The Last Angel of History, Álvarez’s retro-futurist compositions draw from both literature and sound, often inventing fictional characters whose stories explore the human struggle within modern landscapes.

Listen to “Metamorfosis,” a cumbia-salsa fusion from the album Meridian Brothers & El Grupo Renacimiento, which transports Kafka’s classic novella into a 21st century digital dystopia filled with El Hielo (ICE), cameras, and drones. Crucial to note, El Grupo Renacimiento is presented here as a lost Bogotan salsa dura band from the ’70s, though in reality the group never existed and all instruments along with the voices of the band members are played by Álvarez. Building further on the mythology, the album also came with an animated documentary centering around the fictional musician and bandleader Artemio Morelia, who seems to be based on real figures from the Colombian salsa scene.

“I was inspired by the ambient Hammond organists in Latin America, a style that developed in parallel to easy listening music genres in 60’s & 70’s.”

Eblis Álvarez (Meridian Brothers)

In an interview with Retro Futurista‘s Matteo Damiani, Álvarez reflects on the role of storytelling in the Meridian Brothers’ music:

“Most of my characters are describing a situation or a state of mind. I also create stereotypic characters, common figures of personalities mostly using the basic molds that produce human actions, these molds are in the primary source: the ego, the material possessions, the siblings, the family, the pleasures and creations, sickness, the enemies and the agreements, the absurd mysteries and contradictions of personas, religious beliefs or materialistic atheism, the success, friends, and the unknown and the relation with the non-human, or the super-human collectivity.”

Álvarez speaks more on the subject of creating characters with Afropop’s Ben Richmond:

“The humans of this era are not able to create new things. And it’s not because we’re less intelligent or whatever. It’s because we’re full of the noise of information. So as an artist I have to have a different approach, which is to curate what I have in culture. I have records, I have files and websites. So this is the reason I’m not creating something—I’m taking Enrique Diaz’s voice with the accordion format, and I choose a context. It’s like a video game actually. I’m choosing the role I’m putting in the record. That’s the comment.”

Sonically, the music of Meridian Brothers is deeply hypnotic and often features spaced out sounds and various theatrical voices. While Álvarez has introduced many instrumental transformations to the group’s music over the years, they are perhaps most well-known for a particular Hammond organ-type sound, that is often processed through space echo and spring reverb, a la dub music. The haunted, cosmic tones are sometimes modulated so heavily that they sound like they’re struggling to stay in key, pushing the group’s melodies and harmonies even further into psychedelia.

Álvarez on the Hammond organ’s role in Latin American music:

“I was inspired by the ambient Hammond organists in Latin America, a style that developed in parallel to easy listening music genres in 60’s & 70’s. Organists from Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Panamá and Brazil developed a remarkable style performing with backing bands that played traditional instruments, with the organ as the central instrument – in some cases achieving really beautiful results. A sub-genre of organ cumbia was created also. This music is still played at some of the ‘sonideros’ parties in Mexico and is very popular in Ecuador.”

Listen to the Version Rebajada (a sort of chopped-and-screwed style of cumbia that emerged in Monterrey, Mexico) of Meridian Brothers’ popular “Guaracha U.F.O.” from their Soundway album Desesperanza.

Meridian Brothers continue to record and perform live music today! We’ve heard whisperings that ZZK Records will be bringing back Los Pirañas, a supergroup featuring Eblis Álvarez alongside Mario Galeano (Frente Cumbiero, Ondatropica) and Pedro Ojeda (Romperayo), later this year. Look out for that!

Below, listen to more favorites from the Meridian Brothers’ decades-long catalog.